wearing. (applause). >you got nice shoes on. >>yeah. and so and also i had fallen one time on my left knee. it was... it would swell and when i would walk. that is gone. so that's what i... i'm sold on the product. it works. it's real- >it takes the pain away. >>yes. it takes the pain away. and so that's why i wanted to bring ken meares and have him talk to you about it, talk to the people in this area about it and because it's a wonderful thing. when you find something good it's just like jesus. >>you want to share it! >you got to share it! >don't you-- you got to share it. >>right. >well, were going to spend the whole night sharing tonight and um it's just a little teeny tiny pill. the tiniest little pill you could ever imagine. and it... i can't imagine that little pill doing that much great work. but i haven't been in pain so i haven't tried it. but uh can you do... you just take these with you even if you don't have pain? >>absolutely. the normal dosage is two a day, and kens going to go

into that and also dr. downey. i don't want to um... >>actually i'm not an expert. i just know i'm pain free! >were just waiting. were just kind of- >... telling them a little bit before we get started here. but we want to welcome ken meares the founder, the ceo of great healthworks. i'm so glad you're here ken. (applause). >>thank you. thank you. >i had a wonderful afternoon with you and- >>yes we did. >i'm so glad that you've come back to be with us and you've brought a doctor with you. and now i'm going to do something we don't really do it right off the bat but i want to do this because we have only three hundred of these bottle here and the deal is tonight... >were going to give you a bottle free, with every bottle you buy. so um that way you'll, you'll be able to really try it. so one free with every bottle you buy. and so um, i just want to get people started right off the bat because if you have pain and you want to buy this go to your phone and you get an extra one free. now, ken tell me about how did you... did you develop this? >>no um i have been i've been

in the uh health care business for twenty-five to thirty years. i was involved in sports medicine, i've been involved in the building health clubs, i've been involved in the arthritis business, and i learned of this oil um in 2002. i heard that there was a company in australia trying to bring the most powerful, natural, anti-inflammatory, and that's what omega xl is. a powerful, natural, anti-inflammatory to the u.s. and i had just sold a company and i contacted the ceo there and i said look it: i'm not a distributor, i'm a company owner, but i'd like to try this this product, i've heard about it. and the results that i found from the individuals that i gave it to, they were astounding. and what makes this product so unique, it had studies behind it. the medical community, doctors would accept it because it had double-blind studies, peer reviewed and published- >now those studies are expensive too aren't they? >>yes, they are very very expensive. and this is a one of a kind oil, it's called omega xl, its comes from the, a green

lipped mussel. not fish. it comes from one place in the world; the pristine waters of new zealand. it comes from a shellfish, not fish. and sometimes people will say, well if it's from a shellfish i'm allergic to shellfish. but you're actually allergic to the protein in the shellfish and all the protein has been removed. some people will say, well shellfish eat off the bottom of the ocean, scavenge. no, these mussels are grown in mussel beds, on vines, they never touch the ocean floor, there's no water runoff, there's no contamination, the- >>new zealand government the waters-- >they're specially grown... >>...are perfect, they're grown. and there's no known side effects. with over twenty years of research. no allergic reaction. and no drug, drug interaction. so an individual can be on three, or four, or five different prescription medications and take omega xl which is a very powerful, natural, anti-inflammatory. which is hundreds of times more powerful than normal

omega 3s. and with the aging baby boomers, with seventy one million people in the u.s. under cardiovascular care today. more people die of heart attacks than anybody else uh any other disease. one point one million people will die of a heart attack this year. more than half are women. sixty million or plus people have arthritis, twenty million plus have asthma, twenty million plus have diabetes. all these have inflammatory components. so you have uh an american society that's getting older that wants to remain youthful. you've got the baby boomers out there. eight thousand a day turning sixty years old for the next eighteen years. and were in denial with all the rock star's in their sixties. we've forgotten age. we act young but we feel old. nobody wants pain! and i work in a collaborative basis with physicians and dr. downey, whom i'm honored to have here, uses this product in his practice. and here's a man that normally and i won't only say dr. downey many doctors are

limited to what they have on their prescription pad. and they know that they're doing everything they can to help you but they also know that there are side effects with prescription drugs, we all know that. >yes! >>and here a product that's nananananananananarat'of kind, that's powerful, with no side effects. it gives a doctor a tool, a weapon that they've never had before. and dr. downey uh certainly will speak for himself but he's had... i've met him at his at his practice, he's had tremendous results with the product, so again i'm very i'm very pleased and honored to have him here from the medical standpoint because people watching this show will say, well ken meares you're the ceo of the company uh you just want to sell product. actually i want to help people. >yeah you do. >>they always say the richest person in the graveyard is still dead. so it's not about its not about just that it's about helping people. so-- >i i want you to tell just a minute here real quick. i know, i didn't mean to interrupt you but- >>no, no go ahead. >... you talked about how expensive it is to make this

one little pill to me. >>well yes this this... >tell that... >>this bottle takes eighteen months to make. >eighteen months. >>the mussels have to grow... >>we grow those... we have a limited supply. there's an arrangement with the new zealand government. they don't fish out the waters. so they have to be grown and then when they are processed they take eighteen months to make one bottle. and were able to make about three million bottles a month. so it's a limited supply product we just don't turn a machine on and press out pills and make and make and make them. it's a natural product. this is a super food. it comes from the ocean. and this mussel only comes from that place in the world. only in the waters of new zealand. it's called the oil extract of perna canaliculus, perna canaliculus, that's from the green lipped mussel. and there's a patent to process that our partners in australia pay millions and millions of dollars for. it took fifteen years to stabilize the extraction process. this is a product that truly works. it's safe, it's effective,

there's no side effects and, and when someone has questions on it you either have two choices. keep the pain or try it. >or try it. >>you get an unconditional money back guarantee and again there's medical science and research and data to back this up and that's why many, many medical doctors use this in their practice. that's why um dr. maniscalco who is a um... who was the head of the florida cardiologist for three years. he was the president. he has hundreds of patients on the product and he himself is a patient of the product. he said, ken i've never had a product that works like this. and he's able to prescribe an omega 3, which is a foundation, very important product for an individual to take. >oh wow. so... it is! >>so it's a very unique product. one of a kind. >now dr. downey, welcome to club 36. (applause). >>thank you. thank you. >and i want to ask you now, heart for example as you were talking ken, the heart,

there's so many people who die of heart attacks. >>the omega xl, the oil it's the uh ingredient in omega xl is an anti-inflammatory. and the cause of all the things that we develop with aging and that cause pain is inflammation. so the whole the whole purpose of that product is to decrease the inflammation to reverse the effects of inflammation and to reverse the effects of aging and pain- >>that's how i present it to my patients. many of whom that are probably watching tonight. uh inflammation is, is the tendency of the body to heal itself but uh occasionally the inflammation goes uncontrolled and it becomes chronic inflammation. and with chronic inflammation you have swelling and around... if there's swelling around a nerve you have nerve damage if there's swelling in a joint you have joint damage and joint pain. so the purpose of that that particular product and the many of the medicines that i prescribe with hesitation because of the side effects are trying to reverse that

inflammation. so if you can prescribe them uh a medication or a or a substance that can reduce inflammation without causing without causing harmful side effects that's, that's the best of both worlds. you're providing relief without causing damage. >and you don't have to have pain to take it you take it. now uh a diabetic, what does it do for a diabetic? >>uh... diabetes. pardon me. diabetic uh individuals have elevated blood sugar, increased blood sugar. and the increased blood sugar has an effect on the nerves for example. >yes. >>and the uh... the substance in the blood glucose can impair the nerves and make them so they don't function correctly. this will decrease the inflammation around the nerve to prevent swelling around the nerve. >it's good for everything. >>there's no reason not to try it or not to take it. and uh the way i describe it to patients is you're taking it... everybody that takes it something gets better. >>and you're not going to know what it's going to be. >something gets better. >>something's going to get

better. and um and if you take it long enough i think the pain will decrease but also you'll decrease some of the effects of, of aging, of life. >>wow. >well now listen i'm ready for that one how about you? (applause). >>i, i take four a day. >you take four a day? >>two in the morning and two in the afternoon. yes ma'am. >uh there's sixty soft gelled capsules in a bottle and tonight only tonight and in the replays you can get two for the price of one. they're giving you one free. for the price of one. so if you go to your phones right now... now when this is when i don't have anymore its over okay. so i need you to go to your phone right now and call and get uh and get one its uh forty nine dollars for one bottle and that will give you two bottles and you can try and see the difference it will make in your life. you may say well after i take about ten of them well i didn't feel any difference um keep trying because with my girl she took one and she felt the difference. so i don't know what it's going to do for you but i'm

asking you to try it, it will make a difference in your life. >> for the recent months we have heard a great deal in both the media of television, print, and newspapers about adverse effects from anti-inflammatory drugs. several of these drugs have been taken off the market. thus giving the patient population that i serve i had to search for a new ant-inflammatory agent which would be helpful in the care of my patients. my search led to the discovery of a new product, omega xl. this uh lipped extract is a very powerful anti-inflammatory agent and has been very effective as i've used it in the relief of symptoms in my patients who have inflammatory conditions. > just keep going to your phone because it's going to take a lot of phone calls to get all these bottles and you want to make sure you get your free bottle tonight. so go to your phone. you know i'm reading this and it says it's good for allergies, and arthritis, asthma, um cardiovascular

disease. can kids take this? >>absolutely. from two to one hundred and two. there's eight million children in the u.s. under seventeen years old who have asthma. asthma is getting worse and worse and worse. the air pollution, particularly the fumes that come out of the back of a diesel fueled truck, the diesel particles will attach themselves to the oxygen and you'll try to breath it in and it will stunt your lung, lung growth. >>it is now being proven-- >wow... >>large cities. the la's, the detroit's, the chicago's where they have a lot of heavy vehicle traffic it's actually causing stunted lung growth. probably the first generation that may die at an earlier age than the current generation. but children from two to one hundred and two. again now eight million children under seventeen years old with with asthma in the u.s. >so you'll just... they'll take it because it's a gel cap >>it's a soft little teeny soft gel cap. little teeny soft- >so easy. >>and if someone doesn't actually want to actually swallow you can actually put a little pin in it and squeeze it on their food- >squeeze it. >>if they're two or three years old. but it's also very good for pregnant women.

how many times have you heard you can't have a pregnant woman take anything? a a diet rich in omega 3s will help the brain development of the child. actually even from the time the woman is pregnant. from the time the time the woman conceives to the first twenty four months a child's brain triples in size. doctors across the country are embracing omega 3s. it's coming down from the tops of the ama. omegas 3s are so important and dr. downey can address that. it's very - you talk to any doctor and you say i'm taking omega 3 they say keep taking it. keep taking it. and it's the only the second time that the fda has ever allowed a qualified claim, the fda has allowed a claim to say a diet rich in omega 3s may reduce the risk of of uh cardiovascular disease. the first time the fda's allowed a qualified claim in for a non prescription medicine, the second time in their history. >now a child, two years old. see i have a granddaughter she's eighteen months she uh i mean she's a little wild

fire but could i give her one? >>yes. >and that's from a dr. ya'll. so she can have one. how often? >>uh in my opinion this is the safest substance you can swallow. period. >period. >>i mean it's it's for pediatrics, adults, geriatrics. what you're doing it's uh a preventative medicine. you're treating that which you've got, the inflammation that you've got, and you're preventing that inflammation which is going to come down the line. so uh in my opinion it's the safest thing that you can ingest. >cindy do you have children? this is dr. downey's wife. beautiful cindy. and do you- >>four. >four? and do you give them to your children too? >>yes. >that's wonderful. can you tell the difference in their school, their behavior? >>they're all adults. young adults. >oh. young adults. >>out of school. >you don't look old enough to have young adults out of school.

>>it's the omega xl. it's it's the omega. (applause). >>anti aging. >>the anti aging part of it. >the anti aging part of it. well if it did to me what it does to her i think i'll take four a day. i'll tell you um so why do you like to take it cindy? what do you see about it? >>oh the energy level in me just increased dramatically within id say three days. i had a rotator cuff um problem in my right shoulder for seven years and i am completely pain free. (applause) and that... um i have had inflammation of the stomach probably for the past twelve years. i have none of that. >(applause) wow so those people that have acid reflux it would be good for them. >>we went one night without it and it was an amazing difference the next difference the next day and i told him i said you forgot to give me my omega xl last night. and i could tell immediately. just with the indigestion in

the stomach problems. >wow. >>so i won't go without it. ever. >ever. >>you said buy five hundred bottles before they run out. >buy five hundred before they run out. we have got um all these bottles here and you go to your phone and uh just because they want you to try it. tonight. this is um one bottle but you're going to get one free. for every bottle you buy, one free. all right. if you want to buy five, six. can they do that? and one free? no, just one. >>buy one get one free. >just one. okay. you buy one you get one free! okay, so um this is wonderful for you and you will have um the opportunity to have two months worth. right here. so there's that that gives you two a day. now if you like me i would need two bottles a month because i like it my husband will like it. >>that's right. that's what happens. >so, but how much is a

doctor's visit? you know this is such a preventative medicine. were putting you out of business doctor i'm sorry. >>you know uh i i we have a practice augusta pain management here in augusta, georgia. we see a hundred, a hundred people a day in pain. >in pain. >>and that's pain that they've that's become lifestyle limiting. they can't do the things they want to do they can't go to church they can't go to the bookstore they can't do things with their family. so they come to see us with this painful condition. and our our goal is to get them out of pain. and to get them out of pain as safely as possible. and at sometimes i have to prescribe strong narcotic pain medications and strong anti-inflammatory medications but i always defer and recommend try this try this-- >first. >>...anti-inflammatory that's natural and no side effects and no harm. so that you can't go wrong with at least trying it. and now i recommended they stay on it because something will get better. >>they're actually helping

his business because when you help people they'll tell their friends. so it'll actually help the doctors business- >that's exactly-- >>...not put him out of business it will expand his business. >expand his business. because everybody will want to have this. the preventative part is what i really like. i really like the fact that i have; i've always been concerned about the heart thing. this will help prevent a heart attack. that's wonderful. >>well it will help. we can't guarantee that it will, but it certainly will help. >i said help prevent it. >>absolutely it will help. absolutely will help. no question about it. >i i could think of a bunch of our partners right now who have heart problems and i would love to have them to call tonight and get this because they've got to have it. >>with one point one million people dying a year well now they call them a cardiovascular event, and heart attacks are bad but you can recover without any real noticeable effects. what was worse is a stroke. because you can either lose your ability to speak, or you can lose all your motoring skills, you can lose the

ability of your leg or you arm. strokes are devastating. i've worked with stroke victims and its frightening when you have the ability to think but the words won't come out and the circuitry in the brain has been short circuited and it causes such agony to the to the person who's had the actual event and what it does to the family members, it tears their heart out. so the word healthcare, it's not outdated but doctors like like dr. john downey here, there's only so much they can do for you but it's also a combination of healthcare and self-care. you have to help yourself. i mean medicare, medicaid, medical were collapsing our medical system. you've got eight thousand people a day turning sixty years old for the next eighteen years; the baby boomers. forty seven million people had no health insurance in the u.s.a. last year. for the whole year. and during a part of the year eighty one million people had no health coverage at all. >wow. >>that causes stress to people. and with stress you can have

an inflammatory. stress and inflammation are two very very bad problems. and inflammation is the probably the number one underlying cause of most conditions. > i started taking it back in december and i immediately start noticing that i had more, e, energy within the first couple of days. about three to four weeks later i realized that i was not having lower back pain. >>with the omega xl you know my life is been change completely; it will exercise after 25 years of not being able to exercise. you know that i wish that they had the omega xl 30 years ago when i first started the arthritis those 30 years. but not since i do have it, i tell everybody that has aches and pains everybody that has any type uh, uh inflammatory problems that this is, this is the product that they need to try. > there's two different benefits that i noticed by taking omega xl, one being the increase benefit of not having uh to worry about uh of stiffness or joint problems. the other benefit is been i have seen the difference in

my skin uh i've seen a more resilience in my skin uh being out in the heat uh the sun exposure can definitely dry your skin it gets dehydrated. so by taking this in particular omega 3 being omega xl i've definitely seen a great improvement in my skin. > well i had uh two compress disks. i went to see a very renowned back specialist here in miami and uh was told there was nothing really i can do for it, uh not even surgery. uh when i started taking the omega xl and in about 72 hours i started noticing uh, uh significant difference in my back and the swelling was a lot less. it was really an answer to prayer i, i didn't know what i was going to do. i, i have children down to a very young age and i want to be active with them as long as i can is allowing me to keep up with them and experience good things and that's thanks to omega xl no doubt about it. >> i included omega xl in my daily regiment and after

taking the product for 30 days my pain significantly diminish. and now after 6 months of taking the product i can say with my whole heart that i no longer feel stiff and sore i don't feel the, the constant pressure in my back that i once felt and i have increased my mobility. she gave me several of this golden looking pills and she said: try this! and so i said: okay! so i tried it and i liked it and uh i think i was on it for about 2 weeks and uh suddenly i noticed that i had very little pain. > couple of years ago i, i had nerve damage that started affecting inflammation and problems in my toe area. i was introduced to omega xl and i took it myself and i can tell you that it works because i am not in pain, i am not in discomfort and i can resume my daily active life style that i used to have for the last 30 years. i believe in omega xl, it

works! >> i've had pain where i call from arthritis in both thighs and at night time could not sleep with that most times getting up and taking something for it and it really didn't do a whole lot of good. but since i've been on omega xl i can go to sleep at night and not have to wake up with pain, which makes a big difference cause i feel much better in the morning. and also my husband takes it jim brown, he takes it for his neck and his shoulders and it helped tremendously, he has so much problems cause he does construction work and it would be in the evening time when lots of pain and that is not happening right now. i drive between 7 and 8 hours every day and sitting in the, behind the wheel has taken a tore on my back which i had a problem with for over 40 years. and driving the limo has made it worst and since i started using omega xl it is help considerably. i used several other products some of which i really don't want to take uh but nothing has worked as well as omega

xl. >>so i started taking the product i immediately noticed that my energy level changing. i would drag in the morning i would be tired um i found myself jumping right out of bed and getting myself ready to go to work. i also noticed probably on the fifth day of taking the product, the pain in my leg stopped! >it's really important that we do take care of our bodies. >>absolutely. >and if there's preventative things we can do... i mean, then you don't have to go to a doctor and you don't have to buy all those drugs. those drugs are expensive. i don't know about you, i haven't had to buy any but when russell was beat up and he was in the hospital and then we had to buy drugs for him afterwards. i mean they went in the hundreds of dollars! >>absolutely. and some people take better care of their cars and their boats than they do their own body. >uh huh. >>...their own health. and it's really about prevention. and the whole healthcare system today is looking more at prevention as opposed to correction. omega xl offers hope. it really works. >it really works. >>you have nothing to lose. >>you have everything to gain. >i think i better take one right now.

>do you want one? have you had one today? >>i've had mine. thank you. >oh, you've had yours. has everybody had theirs? well i haven't had mine. so here's mine. we will be replaying this program but i just want you to know that if you like to have one of these please go to your phones there's still phone partners here to answer your call. so were asking you to go to your phone, make that call.

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we are back with our roundtable. joining me now, former obama press secretary and senior adviser to the president's re-election campaign, robert gibbs. ana navarro, national hispanic chair for mccain 2008. "new york times" columnist david brooks. and chairman of the faith and freedom coalition ralph reed. welcome all. super bowl sunday. >> thank you. >> david, i want to start with chuck hagel. you heard what leon panetta said. the political knives were out. >> it was him. you ever had this nightmare you're back in college, you've been nominated to be the defense secretary, you haven't done any studying all term, and the confirmation hearing is in five minutes? it looked like that.

unprepared. even to defend himself. look strong. he's being attacked for his integrity, honesty. hit back. demand some time. defend yourself. you've got to do that because you have to have the confidence of the president to get the job and the confidence of the generals in the building. this is a problem. if i were chuck hagel, i'd go to the president right now and say, do you still have confidence in me? do you think i can do the job? >> you would offer to withdraw? >> you have to if you think you won't be effective because of what's happened.çó i think you have to ask privately that question. >> ana, a lot of the conversation that the white house is trying to say, this was all politics. let me play a clip of your old boss questioning chuck hagel. >> were you correct or incorrect when you said that the surge would be the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since vietnam? were you correct or incorrect? yes or no. >> my reference to the -- >> are you going to answer the question, senator hagel? the question is, were you right

or wrong? that's a pretty straightforward question. >> well -- >> i would like the answer whether you were right or wrong, and then you are free to elaborate. >> well, i'm not going to give you a yes or no answer on a lot of things today. >> well, let the record show you refuse to answer that question. >> ana, the viewers may not know the history between hagel and mccain. they were close friends in 2000. not so in 2008 when it was clear that hagel's wife was supporting obama and not mccain. was that personal? >> i don't think so at all. anybody who ever saw mccain grill donald rumsfield knows that this is john mccain. this is his job. they are there to advise and consent, not to rubber stamp. if they are not going to get the scrutiny and tough questions now, then when? >> why was he so much tougher on chuck hagel than john kerry? >> because there are so many inconsistencies with hagel.

i have never -- i don't remember a hearing where there were clarifications to clarifications that then had to be clarified. when there were so many, i regret having said that. there were so many what i meant to say, what i should have said, because he was doing a terrible job, because he's not giving answers. john kerry gave answers. we just saw an interview with leon panetta where he gave answers. he answered masterfully. we saw three tough hearings this week. secretary clinton on benghazi. we saw john kerry go through a hearing. and chuck hagel. and you can not compare the first two to chuck haguel. after i watched the hearing, i remembered the lyrics to a country song. you mean i shaved my legs for this? you mean we're having this huge fight over this guy who cannot even articulate our policy towards iran? >> robert? >> let's be clear. >> this performance was not good. >> two things. i want to go about something

that ana just said. if you turned on cspan and hadn't watched tv in the intervening six years, you would think we had 150,000 troops parked right now in iraq. this next defense secretary is not going to deal with iraq and the surge. this was a vanity thing for john mccain to try to approprove to former friend who disagreed with him that he was right on the surge and that chuck hagel was wrong. >> what should hagel have said? what would you have told him to say? >> i think he said correctly, we're going to let history judge iraq, because frankly chuck hagel could have said, senator mccain, i think i might have been wrong on iraq. were you wrong on iraq? here's the question. none of that is anything that the next secretary of defense is going to deal with. hold on. let's split this into two buckets. there was the totalally out of context questions that won't bear on what the next secretary

of defense will do. he seemed unprepared on the questions that quite frankly he knew were coming. >> he had mock hearings. should he go to the president and say, do you still have confidence in me? >> i'm reminded through weeks into his first term of the obama administration. time geithner gives a speech at the treasury department about our banking industry and how to save it. three weeks into the administration. three weeks into his tenure. the market dropped 382 points. two weeks ago, tim geithner walked out of the treasury department, four years later, as one of the most influential treasury secretaries in the history of our country. so we get into all of these kerfuffles about one hearing or a few answers. chuck hagel is an infantryman who executed the orders of the secretary of defense and the commander in chief and understands what those people go through, and he'll be a good secretary of defense. >> i know we talked about this. bill kristol wrote the following, comparing chuck hagel

to harriet myers and almost daring them to do with harriet myers. they simply thought she wasn't a first-rate candidate. they were confident that bush and the courts and the country could do better. it wasn't pleasant in 2005 for them to oppose a nominee tore to gi but it was the right thing to do and a willingness to do it was a sign of health of the american conservatives. are you surprised more democrats aren't publicly raising concerns? >> i am surprised, and i think privately it's, you know, it's window rattling. how much democrats behind the scenes are saying that this was an abiz malperformance by senator hagel. he is the wrong man for the wrong job at the wrong time. and by the way, there were far more questions about the issues that perspectively he would deal

with as secretary of defense than his record. the reason why his position on the surge in iraq is so critical is because it speaks to his judgment. but when it comes to iran, let's remember, chuck, he voted against designating the iranian revolutionary guard as a terrorist organization at a time when the intelligence was clear that they were killing u.s. soldiers in iraq. this is somebody who wants to command u.s. troops. the revolutionary guard is killing our troops. and he voted against calling it a terrorist organization. >> i want you both to tackle something here. it's the confidence -- he may get confirmed, david. but will he have the ability to go back before the armed services committee and sell cuts? >> he will if he has the ability to do it. that's what we don't know. so look at what the next defense secretary is going to have to supervise massive defense cuts. make key decisions, long-term

technical advance, short-term rdiness. these are tough questions. you have to be able to present leadership and toughness. he is personally a tough guy. i've seen him oppose the iraq war with other republicans. he personally has that courage. but can he project that and show mastery of the building? that's the question. >> the ability to be a salesman, a politician. >> absolutely. let's divide politics from all of this. you know, ralph just said this was about judgment. and david just said opposing the war in iraq takes courage. i think the notion in some ways to say because chuck hagel doesn't believe what john mccain says you question his judgment. for somebody that carried a gun as a general in vietnam, i'm going to trust their ability -- >> well, chuck hagel doesn't believe what he says 10 years ago and 12 years ago. >> i want to go to immigration. this is chuck schumer this week on the issue of immigration. >> for the first time ever,

there is more political risk in opposing immigration reform than in supporting it. >> ana navarro, you were closely advising marco rubio, who is a part of this group, bipartisan group of senators. is chuck schumer right? there is more political risk opposing than to supporting? >> i think there's political risk on both sides. and i'm very proud of what marco rubio is doing, stepping outside of the political safe zone, really going out on a limb and leading. i think he is making a big difference in how this issue is being received by the conservative base. he is an hispanic republican, they give him deaference because of that. he is also very popular with the conservative base and put a lot of time and effort into selling these principles and explaining them before they were afounnoun a week or two. he was on the radio or tv all the time explaining it to the conservative base and in spanish to the hispanic community. it needs to be supported by

both. >> you know, ralph, national review respectfully came out against marco rubio's plan. they said he's wrong about how to go about repairing the immigration system. wrong to think that an amnesty bill at this time will end up being anything other than at unbuttered side of a loaf of bread, and there's no fear to lose a hispanic vote the republicans never had. >> this editorial seemed off on recent history. >> well, the republicans have now lost four out of the six presidential elections since the berlin wall fell. and the only two that they won, the candidate was somebody from a border state, with mexico, who said that family values don't end at the rio grande, and whose vision for the future of the country -- >> you work with a lot of social conservatives. is that message going to work? >> well, i think so, and i'll tell you why. first of all, the devil will be in the details, if i can use that metaphor. but people of faith are commanded by scripture.

both old and new testament. to welcome the foreigner and show compassion for the immigrant. but there's a cresponsibility, o obey the law and show respect for the customs of the nation in which they reside in. so, for example, you've got a million people who are spouses or children of people who are here legally. >> with green cards. >> seeking a green card. 200,000 of those are minor children. we do not believe, chuck, that somebody who violated our law as their first step on the road to becoming an american should take precedence over those minor children entering the country. >> is this going to work? >> you know, i have been so frustrated this week. we've got an aging society with stagnant education levels. out there, there is a global pool of talent.

they'll pay more taxes than they receive. they'll create a much more dynamic economy. and the last week in washington, we've been side tracked off this potential to actually give some growth to our economy by issues of how many links are in the chain we're going to build. what's going to trigger what. does gay marriage affect all of this? it's like this moral i]obtusene. this is our only shot at getting a growing economy. this attempt to win the race for global talent out there, and we are debating socrates. >> it does seem like the politics of this is coming together. robert, you're here. i want to quickly talk about guns in this respect. the president, a picture of him skeet shooting. we know that there had been a kerfuffle, this idea was he really -- the president said yes, he had fired a gun. i do have to ask you, have you seen him skeet shoot? >> i have not. but camp david for him is a private retreat that he spends most of the time with his

family. i don't think it's whether or not the president shoots a gun regularly or even if he shoots it well. >> let's participawhy participa feeding the beast. >> let's not -- the big political development this week in the debate on guns was that the nra came out in favor of criminals having access to any weapon they'd like to in our society, walking back the same congressional testimony that they gave after columbine that having a universal background check to make sure that a criminal doesn't have access to a semi-automatic weapon. i mean, that's the real -- >> i want to show a little bit of this ad. michael bloomberg putting up a super bowl ad, ralph reed and ana, basically supporting the background check bill, showing testimony of wayne lapierre

supporting a background check. here is a little bit of that ad. >> the nra once supported background checks. >> we think it's reasonable to provide mandatory instant criminal background checks for every sale at every gun show. no loopholes anywhere for anyone. >> all right. i'll admit i need quick answers here. can a southern republican vote for the background check bill and get re-elected? >> a licensed dealer at a gun show already does a background check. that's already going on. what we're talking about is antique and special collectors and private sales. i think that's very difficult to legislate properly without killing gun show. >> there is a rural split almost more than anything else. urban politics are more supportive of this idea. >> yes. but i think both the southern republican and the urban republican should all be voting for universal background checks. look, connecticut was a game changer. we need to understand that. the gun issue is here. it's not going away.

every other day, we are hearing about a tragedy on the news. and people keep asking, what are we doing about it? republicans and the nra should be part of the solution, should be part of the conversation, not just say no. and universal background checks is something that there could be consensus on. >> guys, i have to leave it there. sorry, robert. i'll get you again. you used to be able to cut me off. now i get to cut you off. up next, it's super bowl weekend. we're talking football. bob costas of nbc sports is here. bob costas of nbc sports is here. we'll get[ wind howls ]on the [ dog barks ] ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] something powerful is coming. ♪ see it in the fourth quarter. ♪

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>> and we're back with bob costas of nbc sports. bob, welcome back to "meet the press." >> chuck. >> you said the game is evolving to a culture of health and safety, which is another way of saying it's not there yet. >> oh, it's definitely not there yet. but i think goodell is actually well intentioned. >> you do think so? >> yes. i think he is absolutely well-intentioned as a human being. i think he has made significant, positive strides. obviously, as a businessman, he's got to be concerned not only with the lawsuits which could wind up costing hundreds of millions, maybe even potentially billions of dollars. now the nfl is well-heeled, but the lawsuits are a serious thing with more than 4,000 former players involved, and probably more to come. and the other thing he has to be concerned about is the present generation and future generation of parents saying, look, we're longtime nfl fans, but knowing what we know now, we're not going to let our son play football. when i first posed that question to goodell nearly three years ago, people looked at me like i had two heads. >> and then here you have the

president. this is what he said in an interview with new republic. i'm a big football fan. but if i had a son, i'd think long and hard to see if i would let him play football. there's one study that found that an 11% decline in youth football participation. i can tell you, i have a 5-year-old son. every gathering of fathers we have this conversation. >> and a lot of present players, including players like bernard pollard of the ravens and bart scott of the jets among the hardest hitters in the league. >> ed reed this week said he agreed with the president. and this is a guy that gets fined all the time. >> exactly. thomas jones recently retired. one of the toughest players in the league. he told me this past week that when his bears played the colts in the super bowl, i gave him a hypothetical. if a teammate of yours has a chance to sack peyton manning and he simply sacked him, but he could have legally splattered him, would you have been disappointed in that teammate?

he said yes, i would have wanted him to splatter peyton manning and knock him out of the game. in the next breath, he says i'm going to donate my brain, however, to be studied afterwards because i understand the effects of the game. and to me, chuck, here's the key thing. no matter how hard goodell and company try, and no matter how sincere they are to eliminate things like bounties, and more important to eliminate the obvious illegal hits to the head and encourage lowering the target and no head-to-head contact, the way football is played, even legal hits are frightening. >> they're faster. they're stronger than they were even 10 years ago. >> bernard pollard's hit on steven ridly of the patriots not only was a completely legal hit, it was celebrated as the essence of football. his coach, john harbaugh, admirable man, can be heard on nfl film saying, b.p., b.p., that's the way the game is

played. and yet that hit is no less barbaric or dangerous than one that would get you suspended. >> who takes the leadership role here? is it the players? i say this. alex smith is the backup quarterback for the san francisco 49ers in this game because he was out with a concussion. >> correct. >> what player will self report? they are going to lose their starting job if they self report on this front. if the players aren't going to do it, is it going to take more people like the president speaking out? the congress. teddy roosevelt created the ncaa because of a death. >> well, the players association is pushing for increased safety measures. and next year there are going to be independent neurologists on the sidelines that can diagnose and potentially treat concussions as they happen. but one of the things we have to keep in mind is this. that all the research shows it isn't just the diagnosed concussions. it's the hundreds, if not thousands, of subconcussive

hits -- >> that they couldn't diagnose 10 years ago. >> right. those are the ones that cumulatively take a greater toll than the concussions. junior seau, who killed himself, shot himself in the chest so they could observe his brain, never had a diagnosed concussion in his entire career. >> is football going to go the way of boxing? and let me ask you this. if football overcompensated on the safety front, do they risk an mma version of football that actually becomes more entertainment? >> if they overcompensate -- >> it's too safe, and suddenly you see -- >> well, they start a different kind of league, a parallel league? i don't know. i guess there are some people who unlike me, i like football despite its violence. a lot of people like it primarily because of the violence. but i will say this. for all the drama, the excitement, the strategy, all the appealing things about football, the way football is currently played in the nfl is

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